


Where You Are Again

by izzyb



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-05
Updated: 2012-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-28 23:12:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/313222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izzyb/pseuds/izzyb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was just another holiday dinner party.  Nothing odd was going to happen this year, right?  (Modern AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where You Are Again

They were in the middle of the local Target ( _six shopping days until Christmas!_ ) when it started.

Jo was usually the stalwart one. She was the girl who had dry eyes when she saw her dad for the first time in six years. She was the girl who retreated into silence, not tears, when her long-time college boyfriend broke up with her over a text message; the one who had a brave face even with the possibility of the end of the world (which her dad helped avert twice, she would say. Thank you very much).

But apparently now she was the girl who cried when, after five minutes of searching, finally found the jar of Hungarian paprika she was looking for, triumphantly held it up for Christine to see, then promptly let it slip from her fingers to break open on the floor in a mess of spicy redness.

Christine, always calm under pressure (Jo looked as if she was going to turn her tears into anger and yell at an unsuspecting employee—a McCoy trait if ever there was one), took Joanna by the arm and, well, fled the scene to the clothing section.

They didn’t speak for a while, just blindly looked through the sales racks while Jo calmed down. Finally, after a fruitless search for a size medium purple sweater, Jo broke the silence with a blunt statement.

“I think I’m pregnant.”

 _Well, shit_ , Christine thought.

“Does your father know?”

Jo shook her head. Of course he didn’t. Christine would know if he did and he’d be drinking straight from the bottle and finding the nearest shotgun. Screw the drinking, he’d just forgo that to better find the miscreant who dared touch his baby girl and beat him to a pulp. Jim and Hikaru would be part of the posse and cheer him on.

On the other hand, violence wasn’t really Leonard’s nature—he would feel too bad and have to fix the kid afterward, so maybe Jim would do his dirty work. Poor, unsuspecting boy. He had no idea what he was getting himself into, who he’d messed with.

Wait a moment.

“Who was it?” Christine demanded. The last she knew, Jo was unattached. Then she noticed Jo’s face was still in the danger of crumpling, so she softened her tone. “Listen, Jo. Let’s just go home and talk about this. I mean, are you sure?”

“No.”

“Have you told anyone else?” _Have you told the potential father_ , Christine finished in her head.

Jo blanched and shook her head, taking control of their shopping cart and heading in the direction of the least busy checkout lane.

The trip back home was quiet with only the sound of Christmas music cheerfully blaring from the radio.

 _Tiny tots, with their eyes all aglow will find it hard to sleep tonight_

*

Quiet, except for one conversation:

“I think we should wait, wait to tell Dad.”

“It’s your decision, Jo. But you know him; any strange behavior will result in an immediate exam and diagnosis, whether you want it or not.”

They both sighed at that.

*

If Jo attacked her father with a tighter hug than usual, no one besides Christine was wiser as to why. Jim stole the bags containing food supplies from her arms and whisked them off to the kitchen to a waiting Uhura and Spock. Well, to Uhura anyway. Spock was just sitting at the table, watching her work her magic. He liked to do that.

Jo ran with her own purchases upstairs to her room after giving her dad one last peck on the cheek.

Christine watched her go until McCoy spun her around and whispered dramatically, “We find ourselves alone. Whatever should we do?” And that, that was definitely a hand, no make it two, grabbing her ass.

“I do not know who you think you are talking to, sir, but I am a _good_ girl. Not one who participates in acts of public lewdness.”

He smirked at her. It was a little smug. “Well, there was that one time—“

She cut him off with a finger to the lips and said, “Shh, We will not speak of that.” Then she kissed him, a little lewdly. Because it was their house, guests be damned.

*

They’d decided to hold the annual holiday dinner party a week early so as to better catch friends and family that would be otherwise occupied on Christmas weekend. Each year, the party moved—in the advent of this tradition five years ago, the entire gang had begrudgingly traveled to Scotland at Scotty’s insistence. No one really remembers what happened Christmas Eve, but they all remember the pounding headaches they had when they regained consciousness the next morning.

The holidays were a time for everyone to come together and remember where they all came from: the years some shared together at the academy, the frantic years in active duty and working together on missions, and the peaceful time since then.

This year was Leonard and Christine’s turn and they’d decided to invite all their friends to the McCoy farm house in Georgia.

So this was why, a few frantic hours after the enlightening shopping trip, _everyone_ who mattered in their lives was sitting around the makeshift long table (really three tables pushed together) and filling up on a variety of delicious dishes, prepared mostly by Uhura. And drinking wine. And beer. And the swill Scotty brought and added not-so-surreptitiously to the punch bowl.

In other words, the whole table was getting sloshed.

And Jo was looking more and more out-of-sorts, pretending to nurse a glass of wine and nibble at the food in front of her. She talked to those around her, of course, though was surprisingly uncommunicative with Pavel sitting next to her.

Against her better judgment, Christine kept giving her concerned glances. And McCoy, always one to notice those things one didn’t want noticed, dropped a hand to Christine’s knee and asked quietly, “Okay, what’s going on?”

Christine was about to make up some banal excuse, but Jim, on McCoy’s other side, butted in with a loud, “Is there something wrong?”

Jo’s eyes shot to Christines’s in alarm and she knocked over the glass of wine she had been fake nursing in front of her right into Pavel’s lap. She became more frantic as she practically threw her napkin at him. Uhura, on the other side of Jo, neatly moved her water glass just in time to avoid another mishap.

One awkward minute later, both Jo and Pavel had red faces and were not meeting each other’s eyes. The whole table was looking at them.

“I’m fine!” Jo said.

“You don’t look fine,” Jim pointed out. “Your face is all flushed and you look trembly.” He elbowed McCoy, “You should take a look at her, Bones. It’s not fun to be sick on Christmas.”

Christine stood up. “I think it’s time for dessert. Jo, want to help?”

“Hell, yes,” she muttered and followed Christine into the kitchen.

*

The conversation of the table went something like this:

“I told her to watch herself these last few weeks of the semester—college kids are full of a multitude of diseases and never think they’re going to be the one to catch one. Hey,  
Chekov, are you alright?”

 _Cough, cough_

“Now everyone is getting sick. Perfect.”

*

And in the kitchen:

“You should tell him, Christine. He won’t kill you. He seems to like you a lot.”

A laugh. “I thought you wanted to wait until you were sure?”

“It wouldn’t matter either way. You know how he is about worst-case scenarios.  
Besides”—deep breath—“I can take it.”

*

Many hours later, the house’s noise level had quieted to a low roar and Christine was getting ready for bed. She knew she could stay up to watch the shenanigans Scotty and Jim got up to as they created more and more elaborate concoctions with the remaining alcohol. Or even reminisce with them as one does on the holidays, of years gone by and remember when they caught Jim and Janice snuggled up together on the couch Christmas morning when they supposedly were _not_ together?

She could stay up, but she wanted to give Leonard some time alone with Jo. They needed it.  
Christine was asleep when McCoy finally undressed and joined her in bed. He pulled her close to his chest and did his usual routine of alternating between feeling her up and kissing her neck until she woke up.

“How did it go?” she asked, squirming as his mouth found a particularly sensitive spot.

“Okay—it was just a scare. Her blood test was negative.” He tightened his grip around her. “I didn’t yell, Chris, but she still cried. My Jo cried. I am not sure I’ve seen her do that since she was a baby.”

“She always thought she needed to be the strong one—losing her mother at such a young age, almost losing you a few times.” She twisted around so that she could face him and rested her head on his chest. It was strange, but the thrum of his heartbeat was always reassuring. Quieter now, she asked, “Have you ever regretted not having more, you know, that we never could have our own?”

He waited only a moment to answer, but Christine held her breath through every second of it. “Never. We’ve always been surrounded by family. Can’t you hear them downstairs?”

Someone was singing now and it made them both laugh.

She fell back asleep in record time.

*  
In the morning, Christine caught Jo by the hand. “Are you all right?”

Jo’s smile was bright. “Yes. I was just having moment of panic. No need to worry.” She leaned in close. “Has dad asked any questions about, um, the ‘father’?” She made the air quotes as she said it.

“No.”

“Okay, good.”

*

In the afternoon, many were making their goodbyes (“See you next year at Sulu’s in San Francisco!”). Christine had her arm slung around McCoy’s waist when she saw them from her vantage point on the back verandah.

Jo was in the farthest corner of the garden with Pavel, sitting on the bench. Christine saw Pavel’s hand reach up to brush Jo’s hair away from her face. Jo responded by grabbing his hand and kissing it. They both smiled.

Chris must have made a sound because Leonard turned to her and asked, “What is it?”

But she just shook her head and led him back inside. Let Jo keep her secret for a while longer. Lord knows she was plenty bad at doing so.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ladypsylocke and the McCoy/Chapel holiday exchange with the prompt of “McChapel family fic, include Joanna, and possibly some other offspring/ maybe a pregnancy story.” Hope you like it! Thank you to sleepygoof8784 and lullabymoon for the read-through(s). Title from Two Door Cinema Club’s “Eat That Up, It’s Good For You.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Some Good Advice, Please (the Maybe-It's-Bad-Sushi Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/386321) by [circ_bamboo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/circ_bamboo/pseuds/circ_bamboo)




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